Diablo 4 is having a free trial on Steam for the first time ever
The trial version offers the curious but uncommitted full access to all Diablo 4 content until November 28.
Diablo 4 has offered free trials in the past on Battle.net but for the first time ever you can now take it for a no-cost test drive on Steam. Until 10 am PT/1 pm ET on November 28, the forces of evil are yours to smack around across the ruined realm of Sanctuary—with certain limitations.
I suspect the timing isn't coincidental—today is also the first day of the big Steam Autumn Sale—and it opens the door to a huge audience of potential players that Blizzard's own Battle.net, with all due respect, just doesn't have. It's also an opportunity to turn around the not-great first impressions of the game on Steam, where the user rating currently stands at mixed. That's not catastrophic (Starfield, for instance, holds the same rating), but it's also not great for a game that was supposed to be a strong return to form for one of Blizzard's most famous game series.
Trial players will have access to all Diablo 4 contents mentioned, but as mentioned, there is one limit: Characters are capped at level 20. That's not terribly high and won't take most people long to hit, especially since Blizzard is also running a "Mother's Blessing Week" that confers a 35% XP and gold bonus until November 27. Blizzard confirmed that the bonus applies to the trial version of the game as well as the full release, which means it might not take more than a few hours, depending on what you're doing, to run headlong into the cap.
The XP bonus is good for people who don't have a lot of time to sink into the trial period, and you can create multiple characters and grind them all to level 20 if you like—there's no limit on how many times you can run up to the cap as far as I know, so if you want to sample all of Diablo 4's classes, this is definitely an opportunity to do so. But if you were hoping for a good week of kicking infernal ass, it's not going to happen. If you're lucky, you'll get a solid Saturday afternoon out of it.
Even if you can't go really deep into Diablo 4 content with this trial, it's hardly the worst way to blow a weekend, and it's hard to argue with free. If you've been eager to take Diablo 4 for a spin but just really, really don't want to do it on Battle.net, here's your chance. If you find yourself sufficiently entranced by the experience, you can also pick it up on the cheap: Diablo 4 is 40% off—that's $42/£36/€42—in the 2023 Steam Autumn Sale.